She went straight down to the kitchen in the basement where her mutterings turned into a clear expression of disgust at the mess, cooking vessels all over the place and nothing cleared up.
She climbed back up the stairs to the dining-room. She opened the door.
For a second she stood quite still, unable to believe what she was seeing. She took one step forward, then realized she could not go on. There was something wrong with her legs. She groped her way to the front door.
Stumbling, dizzy, she fumbled her way to No. 5 where she lay on the bell.
Coffin was shaving while drinking a mug of coffee. Morning was never his best time. Damn the bell! Ignore it. No, impossible to ignore it. On and on ringing. Someone must be lying on it.
A minute later, and he was running down the street, shaving and coffee unfinished.
Into No. 22, the front door left open wide by Mrs Brocklebank in her flight, then to the dining-room.
‘My God.’
They were all three at the table where they had been sitting at a meal, the curry soup before them, a dreadful static group, posed as for a stage set.
Edward had fallen forward, Irene had sagged towards the floor, and Nona still sat there, upright, supported by the arm of the chair.
But dead. They were all dead.
Chapter Six
He had known that the death of William Egan would not be the only death. He had even called it ‘not the right death’. But to have this confirmation was hideous.
After they had been photographed, after the scene of crime team had swarmed in and over them, after the police surgeon and then a pathologist had done all that had to be done in that room, the bodies still stayed where they were.
Of much of this process Coffin was a spectator; he was unable to tear himself away. He had other tasks he could profitably have got on with, but he felt the need to stay. His mood was a mixture of incredulity and sadness. It was unbelievable what he saw and yet there it was. The scene of crime officer kept looking at him, as if he found him in the way but did not know how to say so.
The quiet and terrible peace of the death scene had been broken into by the need to measure, to check for fingerprints, and to find forensic debris. All over the room a search had gone on for what the scientists called ‘forensic residues’. Disorder as well as death had now visited the room.
Coffin stayed until the bodies were packaged up and taken away to the police mortuary for the pathologist’s investigation. He knew the pathologist, a woman doctor who had once been young but found her work was ageing her fast. Then he had a word with the scene of crime officer before he went away.
‘Poison, of course.’ He had sent Mrs Brocklebank home in a police car, and the headmaster of the boy’s school had taken charge of the boy. Now he spoke almost to himself, but the other man answered.
‘Looks like it, sir.’ The young policeman was polite. ‘But of course we’ll know more when Professor Bearden has had a look.’ He was businesslike and unmoved. This was certainly a strange case, but he had not known the Pitts and he saw plenty of messy deaths.
There was no sign of violence on the bodies, no bullet wounds, no stabbing, but signs of sudden convulsive death.
Edward Pitt had risen to his feet, knocking over his chair before collapsing. Irene had fallen across the table. Nona rested in her chair with her head back. He could see her open eyes. All three of them were stiff, with darkened faces as if the blood had been drawn upwards to the skin by capillary action, and there oxidized.
‘I could almost name the poison,’ said Coffin. ‘But how? And why?’
Most of all why? Who could want to poison a whole family?
‘There doesn’t have to be a reason,’ said the other man.
‘You mean it’s an accident?’
‘No, sir. I meant sometimes there isn’t a real reason. Not what you and I call a reason.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe someone just didn’t like the colour of their hair.’
You had to admit the truth of that, Coffin thought. But you didn’t have to like it. Also, he was not going to accept it, he was going to look for a real motive for this murder. If it was murder and not some terrible accident.
He went off down the street, stepping lightly over the famous steps, which, without Mrs Brocklebank to clean them, looked sticky and stained. At some time something had certainly fallen on the steps, staining them for ever.
Coffin did not notice them. He believed in a lot of things, like natural justice, good money driving out bad, and the inequality of the sexes, but not in longlife blood.
Coffin went back to his office, where the death of William Egan at the hands, as they believed, of his son-in-law Terry Place, was still being investigated. The latest report on Place’s condition was that he would certainly live, and they might be able to speak to him tomorrow.
Meanwhile their investigation had received help from Roxie Farmer’s reluctant admission that her brother had been staying with her, and that he had gone off one day, borrowing her former husband’s bike, and had come back with blood on him. At the moment she could not remember which day this was, but she might be able to if she thought about it. And yes, she had recently lost a kitchen knife. For Roxie she had said a lot.
She had delivered herself of this statement to Inspector Paul Lane, who was gently triumphant at what he had got.
‘She’s delighted we’ve got Place and that he’s really banged up. If he dies, she’ll put on mourning but she won’t cry.’
Coffin read her statement, and thought there were still questions to ask, such as, Was your brother on drugs and if so where did he get them? Or: Can you think of any other reason why he should kill with such a frenzy of violence? But meanwhile he must go to see Terence Place’s wife, who also was not weeping.
Someone would have to tell Christopher Court, MP, that the woman he was expecting to marry was dead. Perhaps someone had done so already. And he himself would telephone Lætitia to tell her. Irene had been her friend. Have to do it gently, he told himself, no shocks for that pregnant lady. He thought with pleasure of his sister’s elegant face with the skin that always had a gleam and yet was softly, darkly creamy at the same time. Half-brother, half-sister, with Letty the child of his mother and a wartime alliance with a GI, they did not look alike.
He stared out of his office window where, instead of seeing the busy main road with buses and lorries running along it, another strong image filled his mind. Now he was looking at a building, possibly a house. In the middle, humping up the roof like an ungainly pillar, stood the death of William Egan at the hands of Terry Place; at one end, like a bearing wall, was the whole dead Pitt family, and then at the other end there sprouted, surprisingly, as a kind of ante chapel, the death of the student, Malcolm Kincaid. One of the three students who had appeared to be missing, and then had turned up. Malcolm was the one who had died later. By poison, just like the Pitts.
He was building this house and he did not know why.
He stretched out his hand to the telephone. Letty first, then Mrs Place. Out of one case, then into another. Or was it?
Other houses, real houses, in the neighbourhood were being touched by what had happened to the Pitt family in No. 22, Church Row.
Sarah Fleming came home from her day at the Poly where she had heard the news of the killing in the college refectory. It was her habit after the lecture on the theory of economics, which she found particularly intractable as a subject, to take her notes (she was a sparse but efficient notetaker) to a quiet table by the window, drink some coffee and study what she had written down. If she understood it then, all was well. If not, there was still time to ask someone, or do some reading in the library. If she let the subject go cold on her, then she never got it straight in her mind. She knew her own areas of brilliance, she was a political philosopher and would make her mark in that subject if given time.
The refectory had been built when there was money around for building and the architect had let himself go with wall
s of glass and a high curving ceiling panelled in pastel colours. He had got a prize for the design, although the users of it would not now have endorsed this since it was both hot and noisy. It was known as ‘the goldfish bowl’.
Sarah carried her cup of coffee and cheese roll back to her chosen table and settled to work. On days like this she resolutely closed her mind to worries about Weenie and Co., put thoughts about Peter aside, and concentrated on herself. It was the only way forward. She bit into her cheese roll. She would have preferred ham, being a natural meat-eater, but cheese was cheaper and money was always short with her. Fortunately the wedge of cheese was thick and tasty and for this she was grateful. She would have eaten it anyway because she was hungry, she was nearly always hungry, it was almost the only thing she had in common with Weenie.
A bite of roll, a drink of coffee, three pages of her text mastered. She was happy.
Unsurprised, she felt her happiness broken into.
‘Sal?’
She looked up. Henrietta Fullove and Martin Jones. He had a father who was a police sergeant and always knew everything first. But to show he was independent and a big boy he had lately taken to spelling his name with a small letter: martin.
‘You live in Greenwich, don’t you? In Church Row?’
‘Not Church Row. Just round the corner.’
‘Not far, then. Did you know about the family that has been found dead? All of them. All in one room.’
Sarah stared in silence. Then she said: ‘Who? What name?’
‘Pitt.’
Sarah did not say: This is my own private area, this day, it is all I have, leave me alone. She accepted the invasion as she accepted everything that hit her, without hostility but with a strong inner resolve to fight back.
‘Sit down, Martin.’ She never knew how to make it come out sounding as if she was spelling it with a little ‘m’. ‘Hetty?’
‘I’m off,’ said Henrietta. ‘Got a seminar. It’s martin who wants to talk.’ Miraculously, she could make it sound like a tiny tiny ‘m’. But then she was planning to go on the stage and was already reputed to be collecting points for the Equity card.
Martin sat down; he had been wanting to get to know Sarah better for some time and this seemed like a good opportunity. ‘The Pitts. Did you know them?’
‘I knew them.’ Although the episode with Terry Place and Nona and Peter had received publicity she had managed to conceal her connection with them. But of course she ought to have known that martin Jones would find out in the end. Obviously he did not know from the look on his face. It was a nice face and, other things being equal, she would have responded to that first, she had been wanting to get to know him for a long time. ‘Did you say all dead?’
‘Yeah. Mass suicide perhaps. Or some accident. Murder even.’
‘Is it in the papers yet? Or TV or radio?’
‘No. But it will be.’
She didn’t say: I must get home to Peter, but it was her thought. She still sat there. Peter did not read the newspapers, nor listen to the radio or watch television much; he read books or played his games. He wouldn’t know yet, wouldn’t know about Nona till she told him. She didn’t want to be the one to do that although she knew it was her duty. Usually she did her duty.
She took a deep breath. Could she sit through their evening meal, knowing, and not telling? Yes. It might be best. So let someone else do it. A feeling of relief suffused her, a little of the burden she had assumed rolled off her shoulders.
‘What’s Church Row like?’
‘It’s a nice street.’ That was true, anyway, but it was a lot of other things as well. The home of Nona Pitt who had greatly troubled her life, the home of her employer, Chief Superintendent Coffin, who troubled her equally but differently. Could you feel anything significant for an older man? She thought she could, and that frightened her.
‘And the Pitts?’
‘Nice as well,’ she responded cautiously.
He looked at her cup. ‘Some more coffee?’
‘I ought to get back to work.’
‘Let’s take a walk. And you can tell me about the Pitts.’ He was going to write fiction, and to write fiction you had to gather facts about life: tales, emotions, relationships. And a triple death was something. He sensed she was in a position to tell him.
The Polytechnic enclosed a small square garden which the architect had seen as a kind of cloister for scholarly pacing. There wasn’t much of that done in it, but a good deal of rendezvousing and sitting in the sun. The grass in the centre was consequently beaten down and dry.
She nodded nervously, not sure why.
‘Like another roll to take out?’ He was going to have one himself. He hoped she chose ham, they were the best.
She nodded again, feeling exactly like Weenie. ‘Ham, please.’
As they passed under the arch into the cloister, he said: ‘Did you like the Pitts? I think you must have done.’ Not quite true, Sarah thought, although I could see their good points. ‘Did most people like them?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think I ever talked about them to anyone.’ Except to Peter, of course, who had talked about them constantly. But even then, she had listened rather than talked back. They were a nuisance in her life and that was the truth of it. ‘Admired, I suppose. Yes, I did admire them.’
‘And other people? The neighbours and people in the shops, did they admire them?’
‘Well, they might have done. They had a beautiful car, always had lovely clothes, and looked so good. Got things right somehow.’
‘Envious, was that it?’
‘I wasn’t envious.’ Not true. She had been very envious of Nona, even of Irene.
‘My dad thinks it’s because they were what they were that they were killed.’
‘But that’s terrible.’ She wasn’t as shocked as she pretended to be, though; it was likely that was the way it had been.
‘Didn’t fit in. Successful, when they would have done better not to be so successful. Or not to show it. Too much money for round here. Wrong school for the children, wrong clothes, wrong car. Showing themselves different.’ As well as politics and economics, he read sociology. ‘They should have merged. But they stood out.’
‘They couldn’t help it.’
‘Wouldn’t have mattered in Chelsea or Hammersmith, but round here … wrong.’
Sarah finished her ham roll.
‘So what do you want from me?’
‘Any ideas who it could be?’
‘No, of course not.’ And I wouldn’t tell you if I had. Entirely too high a price for a bit of ham and bread.
‘My dad thinks it’s what he calls a “neighbourhood” crime. Some person noticed them and hated them for what they were.’
‘What you’re saying is: they deserved to be killed.’
‘I’m not saying that,’ he said, as if he might not be, but someone else might.
‘I don’t think the police ought to talk like that.’ John Coffin, she felt sure, would not; he might think the same things, but would not say them in that way. She wiped her mouth clean of the little bit of fat from the ham. ‘I must be off home. I have to see my brother.’ The moment she thought of Peter, then Martin (no, she would not think of him in that ridiculous way with a small m) no longer looked so good, so handsome. Not a patch on Peter.
She rushed into the house, throwing her books on a chair. Peter was lying back on the sofa, doing nothing in particular.
‘You’re back early.’
‘I’ve left you alone too much. I left you on your own all day yesterday.’
He averted his eyes. ‘Yesterday I had Weenie,’ he said with a hint of irony. ‘She was sick because she ate too much. Today she’s back at school. I dare say she will be sick again tomorrow. I expect she’ll try to be.’
‘You say horrible things.’
‘I’ve got horrible lately.’
‘And that’s true.’ But she excused him, as she always excused all of them, except h
erself. Only she herself knew the evil thoughts she had and how effortlessly they could be translated into action. ‘I’ll make a cup of tea.’
No, she would not tell Peter that the person he loved most in the world was dead. Someone he loved more than he loved her, which was a hard pill to swallow. Not that she was jealous, she just thought that Nona had too much of everything. In the scales of life Nona was right up, and the Flemings down, down, down. Now the girl was gone. And Sarah knew, while Peter didn’t. It amazed her that she should find it difficult to tell him. If anyone had said to her yesterday that it would be almost beyond her powers to tell Peter of Nona’s death, she would have laughed. As easy as eating pie, she would have said. She knew better now.
Then she saw that Peter had been crying and that he had taken the trouble to wear a clean, white shirt. White could be a colour of mourning, and cleanliness probably was too. So somehow or other, he knew.
She carried the tea back in, hot and sweet in big mugs. There was some gingerbread as well. ‘Who told you?’
He did not attempt to deny it. ‘Went for a walk. Saw a policeman outside No. 22. People standing staring. Something was wrong. I asked.’ And then: ‘How do you know?’
‘Someone at the Poly.’ You wouldn’t think lightning could strike in the same place twice would you? But apparently with Nona it could. Death had really gone looking for her.
There was a crowd now in Church Row. Mr Brocklebank, who had been sent by his wife to look at the house, reported back. He said what Sarah Fleming had been thinking.
‘Poor unlucky kid. You wouldn’t think it could happen twice.’
‘It’s the house,’ said his wife sombrely.
‘Now cut that out, old girl.’
She ran through the record. All the deaths in the past, some were history, those were painless, but not the new ones. The student, William Egan, all the Pitt family. No, it was no joke.
He did not dispute her catalogue. ‘Never said it was a joke. Not one to laugh at, at least.’ There were occasionally cosmic jokes, you all felt the force of those, they were masked by the words, war, earthquake, or air crash, and this might be one of them. He had a pious sense of his own importance and had always thought all these acts were directed at him, from which he had only escaped by good luck. ‘You ought to tell the police. Nothing to do with what’s happened now, of course, I’m not saying that, but you ought to tell them.’ His voice was coaxing. ‘Let me telephone that policeman you work for. Get him to come to you here. He’s a decent sort, he’ll do it and then you can talk to him.’
Coffin Underground Page 9
